Thanksgiving in the 21st Century

I have several friends now who won't celebrate Thanksgiving, because they see it as a celebration of genocide.

I think gratitude in general is too important not to devote a holiday to, but I also believe we should look at the real history, not the mythology, as we celebrate each year. To that end, I was deeply grateful to find that the pastors of the Downtown Congregations who put on the Inter-Faith Thanksgiving Service in Minneapolis every year apparently agreed with me this year.

Yesterday's service was incredible and deeply moving. Rev. Bailey from the host church, Plymouth Congregational, named the issue in the welcome.  She invited us to reflect not only on what the Wampanoag did for the Pilgrims, but also the centuries of colonialism and genocide that followed. And used those words. She even included a reference to the water protectors & #NoDAPL.

Rev Tim Hart-Anderson, of Westminster Presbyterian, gave the sermon, and invited Rev Jim Bear Jacobs of Church of all Nations to join him to bring the Native perspective front & center. Telling to Thanksgiving story from the Wampanoag perspective was cool. They talked about the story of Jesus healing the lepers in Samaria & all the reasons we don't stop to give thanks - too busy, too afraid, too entitled. Indeed.

Rev. Lebens-Englund from St. Mark's Episcopal read President Obama's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, and invited everyone to stand & hold hands for it. Seemed weird at first, but the proclamation was beautiful & worth it.

The service included scriptures from the Torah, the Qur'an, the Gospel and the Psalms. Passages were read in Hebrew and Arabic, in addition to English. The service also included Latin and Lenape. I loved it. The interfaith nature of the service has grown over 40 years from being Christian + Temple Israel, just sticking to the Old Testament, into a service that pulls in multiple faith traditions and finds the links among them all.

Most meaningful worship I've experienced in a while. I am thankful.